Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

If after all this advice you're still having trouble, ask your doctor to perscribe Immovane. I've been using it for a couple of years to counter the effects of other medicinal stimulants and it's still working. Before that, I was a terrible sleeper who tried everything with no success.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

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There are a couple things that can cause this. First, if you're overweight or often drunk when you go to sleep, you might have apnea. Apnea happens when your throat closes while you're asleep, and you can't breathe. After several seconds, your body panics, and you wake up very briefly, adjust your position, and go back to sleep. Then it happens again in a few minutes to an hour. Apnea is typically accompanied by loud snoring. If you develop apnea at 21, you need to lose weight or stop drinking so much.


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Niether one is a problem.

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Another possibility is just that you have poor sleep hygiene, and it's catching up with you as you get older. This means you go to bed and get up and different times on different days, so your body doesn't have a consistent schedule.

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Now here you might be on to something. I have no set sleep schedule whatsoever. I pretty much just sleep when I get tired , and now that I'm on break, get up whenever I want to. I'll have to look into this one, although it may be difficult to change.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

He probably won't get Imovane (zopiclone) in the US.
He might be able to get Lunesta, however (and perhaps as a sample). Lunesta is basically a slimy trick by a pharmaceutical company to avoid patent laws. Lunesta is the effective isomer of zopiclone (eso-zopiclone), but is not any more effective in practice. The same thing was done with Nexium (vs. Prilosec) and Xopenex (vs. albuterol).

My practice would usually be to avoid new drugs for a few years when there are older drugs that are reasonable. This is not a problem for Lunesta, however, since zopiclone has been safely used for years worldwide. I haven't prescribed Lunesta because I don't have reason to. It is not on formulary at my hospital for inpatients. (I would be unlikely to use it anyway, chosing Ambien, trazodone, or a benzo first anyway.) As far as outpatients are concerned, my office doesn't take pharmaceutical samples (a practice I wholeheartedly support), so I don't have any to hand out. After taking care of sleep hygiene issues (and taking care of mood disorders, which are sometimes at the root of sleep problems), I don't have to prescribe for sleep very often.

It still sounds like cleaning up your sleeping habits would be the preferable first choice for you. This can often be difficult in the environment you find yourself in.

Re: Not being able to STAY asleep
 

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Now here you might be on to something. I have no set sleep schedule whatsoever. I pretty much just sleep when I get tired , and now that I'm on break, get up whenever I want to. I'll have to look into this one, although it may be difficult to change.

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This does take a lot of discipline. My friend has substantially improved his condition by very strictly regulating his caffeine and alcohol intake, and going to bed and getting up at certain times. He's less fun to hang out with since he started doing this. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Here's a reasonably good primer:
http://www.umm.edu/sleep/sleep_hyg.html

I do want to reiterate that drugs are very rarely a long-term solution to sleep problems. Yes, Ambien or Nyquil or whatever you get will knock you out when you first start it, but it will lose its efficacy over time. At that point, if you stop taking it, the withdrawal will make your sleep even worse. I suspect the MDs and med students would agree with me here.